Medically reviewed by Dr. Saurabh Shrivastava, BDS MDS Prosthodontist, Certified Digital Smile Designer (DSD) (DCI: A-04860). Last updated: May 2026.

Smile designing is a planned, multi-step approach to transforming the look of your teeth and gums — combining orthodontics, whitening, veneers, gum contouring, and bite adjustment in proportions tailored to your facial features — and that is the discipline Dr. Saurabh Shrivastava, BDS MDS Prosthodontist (DCI: A-04860), Certified Digital Smile Designer at Smile Gallery Dental Wellness Centre, Arera Colony, has practiced for patients from New Market and across Bhopal. Modern smile design uses digital previews so you see the planned outcome before any irreversible work begins; even where root canal therapy enters the plan for a damaged tooth, the procedure has a 95% success rate over 10 years.

What Smile Designing Actually Involves

Smile designing is not a single procedure; it is a personalised plan. The dentist begins with photographs, a smile analysis (lip line, midline, tooth proportion, gum line, and the way teeth relate to your face when you talk and laugh), digital impressions, and X-rays. From these, a plan is built that uses the smallest set of treatments needed to reach the goal — sometimes whitening alone is enough; sometimes alignment, whitening, and a few veneers together are required.

The Digital Preview — Knowing Before Doing

The Digital Smile Design workflow renders a preview of how the final smile will look on your own face. You see the proposed shape, length, and arrangement of teeth, agree the look, and only then is any tooth touched. This single step prevents most disappointment and gives the lab a precise target to build to.

Common Procedures Used in Smile Design

Treatments commonly combined in a smile design include in-clinic whitening, ceramic veneers and laminates, tooth-coloured composite reshaping, gum contouring with diode laser, orthodontic alignment with braces or clear aligners, and crowns or bridges where teeth are heavily damaged. The combination is chosen for the long-term health of the teeth, not just appearance.

"A smile design that lasts is built on healthy foundations first. I will not place a veneer on a tooth that needs root canal treatment and I will not start cosmetic work on gums that are actively inflamed. The sequencing is not a delay — it is what makes the result permanent."

Dr. Saurabh Shrivastava · BDS, MDS Prosthodontist, DCI A-04860

Who Is a Good Candidate?

Adults with healthy gums and good oral hygiene are good candidates. Active gum disease, untreated cavities, or heavy grinding habits are addressed first — there is no point in placing veneers on a foundation that needs repair. The clinic’s role is to be honest about timing and sequencing, not to rush into cosmetic work.

Care After a Smile Makeover

The maintenance plan is much like for natural teeth: brush twice daily with a soft brush, floss or use interdental brushes daily, and attend a six-monthly check-up. Avoid biting on very hard objects (ice, popcorn kernels, pen caps) since veneers and crowns, while strong, are not indestructible. A night guard is recommended for patients who clench or grind.

Names and identifying details changed for privacy.

Illustration for patient privacy — identifying details altered.
The clinical case and outcome are from Dr. Saurabh Shrivastava's practice.

Priyanka arrived on a Saturday morning in October, a software engineer at an IT firm in MP Nagar, 29 years old and recently promoted to a client-facing role that required video calls with international teams. She had spent the last 3 years avoiding wide smiles in photographs.

"My upper front teeth are different lengths and one is slightly rotated," she said, pulling up a photo on her phone to show me. "It did not bother me before, but now I am on camera every day. I want to feel confident when I smile."

The clinical examination gave me a clear picture. Her gums were healthy with no bleeding on probing. She had a mild Class I malocclusion — the upper right lateral incisor was rotated 12 degrees and slightly shorter than its counterpart. The upper centrals had good shape but one had a small chip at the incisal edge from an old knock. No active decay anywhere. A near-ideal foundation for smile designing.

I photographed the smile from 6 angles and ran the Digital Smile Design workflow on her own face. Within the same consultation she could see the proposed plan: minor composite build-up on the chipped central, a single ceramic veneer on the rotated lateral to correct both position and length, and an in-clinic whitening session to unify the shade across all upper teeth. The total treatment span — 3 visits over 2 weeks.

"This is what I was hoping for — but I was expecting something much more invasive," she said, studying the preview. "I thought I would need braces or a full set of veneers."

We started the following Wednesday. The in-clinic whitening session ran for 45 minutes and lifted the shade by 4 Vita shade steps. At the second visit, I prepared the lateral incisor conservatively — removing only 0.5 mm of enamel — took a digital impression, and placed a temporary resin shell. The ceramic veneer arrived from the lab in 10 days. I bonded it with dual-cure resin cement at the third visit. The composite chip repair on the central took an additional 15 minutes in the same sitting.

At her follow-up 2 weeks later, the bite was even, margins sealed, and the shade matched across all 6 upper anterior teeth. She sent a photograph from her next client video call — smiling with her mouth open for the first time in years, she said.

I prescribed a soft night guard as a precaution — she had mentioned occasional jaw tension during long work calls — and scheduled a six-monthly review. The veneer was intact at both the 6-month and 12-month check-ups.

— Dr. Saurabh Shrivastava
BDS, MDS Prosthodontist · DCI A-04860 · Smile Gallery, Bhopal